On May 15, Daria Botalova, FIF expert, held a lecture and a seminar on anti-corruption policy for students of the St.-Petersburg State University of Culture and Arts.

On May 15, the St.-Petersburg City Court rejected the appeal by Mikhail Zolotonosov, a journalist, against the decision of the Smolninsky district court of St.-Petersburg that had rejected his claims against the decision of the Central State Archive of Historical and Political Documents that had denied him of access to specific materials, referring for “personal and state secret”.

On May 14, FIF experts completed the list of parameters for monitoring official websites of legislative (representative) government bodies of the Russian regions. The list is based on legislative requirements to official websites of legislative (representative) government bodies of the Russian Federation subjects.

On May 14, Daria Sukhikh, FIF Senior Lawyer, held in the “Progress” Scientific Technical Information Center (St.-Petersburg) a seminar for officials from regional and local government bodies of various Russian regions.

On May 14, FIF experts completed initial evaluation for official websites of top executive government bodies of the Russian Federation subjects. Online communication period started.

On May 10, a claim to the Dzerzhinsky district court of St.-Petersburg was filed, asking to check lawfulness of the refusal of Ms Valentina V. Kudryashova, Deputy Chair of the St.-Petersburg City Court, to provide information within the Federal Law “On Providing Access to Information on the Activities of Courts in the Russian Federation”.

On May 10, a claim is filed to the Kirovsky district court of St.-Petersburg against the decision of the Territorial Election Commission #7 of St.-Petersburg that had not let a journalist from the “Grazhdansky Golos” (Civil Voice) newspaper to present at the Commission’s meeting on February 9, 2012.

On May 4, Nikita A. Astashin, a historian, filed a claim to the Lefortovsky district court of Moscow against the decision of the expert commission of the Chief Command of the internal troops upon his request for declassification of several archive documents.

On April 27-29, the human rights working group for assistance to the reform of the Ministry for Internal Affairs held its meeting in Sochi. Staff members of many human rights organization, including Amnesty International, Union “Women of the Don Region”, “Chelovek i Zakon” (Human and Law), and others.

On April 27, our lawyers received a letter from the Secretariat of the Constitutional Court on return of the claim to the Court against provisions of the Federal Law “On State Secret”, Article 13. We will continue the legal battle. Our lawyers are now preparing one more application to the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation.